Jivin J’s Life Links 9-4-09
by JivinJ
Needless to say, the Senator’s wake and Catholic funeral were controversial because of the fact that he did not publicly support Catholic teaching and advocacy on behalf of the unborn. Given the profound effect of Catholic social teaching on so many of the programs and policies espoused by Senator Kennedy and the millions who benefited from them, there is a tragic sense of lost opportunity in his lack of support for the unborn. To me and many Catholics it was a great disappointment because, had he placed the issue of life at the centerpiece of the Social Gospel where it belongs, he could have multiplied the immensely valuable work he accomplished….
Helen Alvaré, who is one of the most outstanding pro-life jurists, a former Director of the Bishops´ Pro-life Office and a long standing consultant to the USCCB Committee for Pro-Life Activities, has always said that the pro-life movement is best characterized by what it is for, not against. We are for the precious gift of life, and our task is to build a civilization of love. We must show those who do not share our belief about life that we care about them. We will stop the practice of abortion by changing the law, and we will be successful in changing the law if we change people’s hearts. We will not change hearts by turning away from people in their time of need and when they are experiencing grief and loss….
I had the opportunity to speak briefly with President Obama, to welcome him to the Basilica and to share with him that the bishops of the Catholic Church are anxious to support a plan for universal health care, but we will not support a plan that will include a provision for abortion or could open the way to abortions in the future.
On the other side, try as they might, the abortion industry has been unable to brand abortion procedures as the equivalent of getting your appendix or tonsils removed. In reality, Planned Parenthood’s campaign to “normalize” abortion (through products such as “I Had an Abortion” t-shirts and “Choice on Earth” Christmas cards) has backfired. Most Americans instinctively recognize that abortion is a moral evil, even if they mistakenly view it as a necessary moral evil.
What must be frustrating for the abortion lobby is that 2009 should be the year of unequaled triumphs, but it’s turning into the year of unequaled setbacks. The president, so far, hasn’t fulfilled his many campaign pledges on the issue; public sentiment is shifting; and support for abortion among the young isn’t the default position it used to be.
In the age of hope and change, it wasn’t supposed to happen this way.
Yet Secretary Clinton challenged 2 fundamental precepts of the case for legalized abortion. 1st, she tied the “infanticide rate of girl babies” to sex selection abortions. If sex-based infanticide and abortion are morally equivalent, then non-discriminatory infanticide and abortion should be morally equivalent as well. Secretary Clinton has raised the core moral challenge of abortion: Once we enter the continuum of life, our essential humanity has been established. The moment of birth has no obvious moral distinction. Else why would Secretary Clinton be as upset with those who abort baby girls as with those who put newborn girls out to die?
2nd, Secretary Clinton undercuts the essential argument of abortion activists: There is a right to unrestricted abortion (or abortion “on demand”). That means for any reason. However, the secretary has identified, to her, at least, one illegitimate reason. If there is 1, might there not be others?…
Secretary Clinton has grasped an essential truth: It is wrong to kill baby girls. But it also is wrong to kill baby boys. The problem is not sex selection abortion. The problem is abortion.
“Given the profound effect of Catholic social teaching on so many of the programs and policies espoused by Senator Kennedy and the millions who benefited from them, there is a tragic sense of lost opportunity in his lack of support for the unborn.”
This is a profound observation Jill and Mr. Kennedy had to know the intentional and subtle influence his very public funeral would have with regards to its effect on the continued support for Liberal abortion policies, especially on young Catholics. Will these young and impressionable types think to themselves, “If Kennedy could do whatever he wanted and get away with it, despite his faith rebellion, and suffer no consequences then why can’t I?”.
Is this not the whole of the Liberal message that we do not reap what we sow, that we are in effect are our own Gods? Especially in light of his rabid pro-abortion position, the RCC’s teaching on it, and the same church’s refusal to follow it’s own reaching by allowing him to be buried as a Catholic. As Obama succeeded in using the church, Kennedy demonstrated by his life a complete disdain for it. Unless of course he and the priests that told him what he wanted to hear thought they were above above it all, yes a vain faith. What monumental arrogance.
Kennedy’s life can only be characterized as profoundly tragic and Judgment Day will bear this out.
Like Proverbs teaches, “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom”. It is obvious that Kennedy had neither.
Yes, to lose one’s soul for eternity is profoundly wasteful especially when one is willing to trade the temporal for the eternal.
And Kennedy’s letter to the Pope? Sorry, Mr. Kennedy, God is not like your dad Joe that you can get to bend to your own will, cannot be bribed and will not compromise.
I am sure Mr. Kennedy heard the Gospel, i.e. from Billy Graham and the like. He was without excuse. The consequences for millions of actual lives lost and the untold exponential future billions of children that will never be is unimaginable.
This kind of stuff is rarely publicly talked about but it must be because it is the truth. We deal with a Holy and Eternal God who is affected as such. And as such he deals with how we lived our lives similarly.
Keep talking, Sen. Clinton. Please, please, tell us more about abortion. I want to hear how else you intend to run that platform into the ground.
Never thought I’d support her talking so much! XD
HisMan, you’re right. Kennedy had absolutely ZERO excuse. The man KNEW. He opposed abortion for all the right reasons. And then he sold out. And he sold Catholics out with him, to an extent. We’re having to fight to gain our own ground back, and it’s tough.
I don’t get it Jill. The Catholics officiating Ted Kennedy’s funeral and burial knew they were going to use this occasion to push the pro-Democratic agenda by promoting Obamacare (like reading his letter to the Pope), why would they allow themselves to be “used” in this way, like they did at Notre Dame? Why not give some response in a respectful way to avoid confusing Catholics and non-catholics about their stance on the fundamental moral issues such as life?
Prolifer,
Catholics weren’t “used” at ND. The Catholics involved were perfectly aware of what they were doing and just thought they knew better. But there was an outcry within the Church from many sources that told ND that their actions were unacceptable.
As for this instance, I think it is possible that the bishop presiding simply felt that despite his proabort stance, Kennedy’s life still deserved tribute. Personally, I don’t see how you can extricate him from his proabort stance, but the twisted logic sometimes catches our priests as well. Unfortunate, but true. Sometimes it’s easy to confuse, since too much tolerance sometimes looks like love, and God is Love.
Unfortunately, his actions have once again given the wrong message to Catholics who look up to the clergy. It’s extremely frustrating.
Here is what Ronald Reagan had to say to some middle school students back in 1988, courtesy of Media Matters. The speech was later carried to schools nationwide.
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Today, to a degree never before seen in human history, one nation, the United States, has become the model to be followed and imitated by the rest of the world. But America’s world leadership goes well beyond the tide toward democracy. We also find that more countries than ever before are following America’s revolutionary economic message of free enterprise, low taxes, and open world trade. These days, whenever I see foreign leaders, they tell me about their plans for reducing taxes, and other economic reforms that they are using, copying what we have done here in our country.
I wonder if they realize that this vision of economic freedom, the freedom to work, to create and produce, to own and use property without the interference of the state, was central to the American Revolution, when the American colonists rebelled against a whole web of economic restrictions, taxes and barriers to free trade. The message at the Boston Tea Party — have you studied yet in history about the Boston Tea Party, where because of a tax they went down and dumped the tea in the Harbor. Well, that was America’s original tax revolt, and it was the fruits of our labor — it belonged to us and not to the state. And that truth is fundamental to both liberty and prosperity.
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That kind of rhetoric today will get you put on Janet Napolitano’s Homeland Security Terrorist watch list.
Look for Naplolitanoc to make a formal request to have Ronald Reagan’s body exhumed and have him indicted and tried for ‘counter revolutionary’ activities.
yor bro ken
As a Catholic I have long held that there is a de facto split in the Church in America. We are now seeing the fruits of dissension from Church teachings–mainstream academia and many bishops leaning leftward and thus giving scandal.
Much of this can be explained by the fact that the Church is comprised by humans–they are known to err. That said, Bishops, by their appointment, are granted the charism of teaching authority, something which lays on them a special responsibility to adhere closely to dogma and Church teachings on matters of faith and morals.
In an ever delicate balance between being in the world but not of the world the vast majority of Christians are faced with daily decisions that call for prayer and prudential judgment. That we do not always “make the grade” is not a surprise.
Here, I believe, many bishops have tried too hard to be all things to all people, instead of just uncompromisingly stating the teachings of the Church. There are a handful of Bishops who do that, but it should be all 200.
Cardinal O’Malley seems to miss the point. We do not wish that Senator Kennedy should not have a Catholic burial and funeral rites. Because of his prominence as a Catholic who flouted the Church’s teachings on such a fundamental and consequential matter as the right to life, he should not have had a public funeral.
The scandal this has caused has been disasterous.
Thanks MaryRose. I do appreciate your response. I want to say that I am indeed grateful to the pro-life Catholic clergy and prolifers because you have been at the forefront of the fight for the sanctity of human life from conception to natural death, so I am not being disrespectful in any way. If it were not for the Catholic Church the pro-life movement would be DOA. I feel that the Dead Babies R Us crowd will try to do anything they can to demean, discredit and minimize those involved with the fight for life and the foundational principles of the right to life. Indeed many Protestant ministers and churches still remain silent about this life and death topic while thousands of babies die every single day. I am grateful my pastor speaks out and is pro-life but he is not in the majority.
“As a Catholic I have long held that there is a de facto split in the Church in America. We are now seeing the fruits of dissension from Church teachings–mainstream academia and many bishops leaning leftward and thus giving scandal.”
Very true Jerry.
I do not recall the Catholic Church ever chastising a single Kennedy for flouting her teachings in public. So why change positions now when its time for a Kennedy funeral?
As a cradle Catholic I really cannot sit in spiritual judgment of what Kennedy did, that is for Almighty God. But what Teddy said and did in regard to the abortion issue I believe was of his own free will and he was fully aware of the consequences on himself and others.
What really angers me is what the Church thinks its doing by remaining silent, giving the appearance that it condones certain actions. It sends out mixed signals.
From childhood we are taught about sin and the need to repent and seek forgiveness, and that there are spiritual consequences if we do not.
But sometimes I think there are one set of rules for the rank and file Catholic, and another set for the rich and famous Catholic. Other times I think that the Church is cowardly and afraid to stand up to public ridicule of her teachings.
I wish just once the Church would issue a simple yet very strongly worded document reaffirming its position on the subject.
We could definately go with the idea of drawing “I had an abortion” type t-shirts, with our own message, on images of the aborted unborn both to make a statement and reach out to those sitting on the fence or undecided. I was thinking shirts which say ‘I am the “products of conception” Continued…
Or how about ‘I am “fetal tissue” ‘ I may come up with some on my blog. I know in the past I have expressed that I disagree with using graphic images, after reading the Justice for All blog and student and faculty responses to their traveling exhibit, I can no longer deny the effectiveness of graphic images when used in the right settings (and I’m still uncomfortable with the images being used where children may be present).
One’s position on abortion is NOT a litmus test for determining who is and who is not a member of the body of Christ.
But ones position on abortion may be grounds for disfellowship or excommunion, particularly if one occupies a position of prominence, power and authority and uses that office to promote policies that are anti-thetical to the sound teaching and the will of God and which defy logic and reason.
The one who does these things is double minded and attempting to serve two masters at the same time. She/is subordinating the interests of God and justice to the his/her own desire to occupy the seats of honor in the both the body of Christ and the marketplace.
Where a woman’s/man’s heart is, there his/her treasure will be.
Distance yourself from men/women who seek the benefits of being identified with the body of Christ, but will not share in the fellowship of the suffering of Jesus and HIS fellow brethren of whom HE is the first born.
The apostle Paul said to mark, take notice of, stand aloof from, ‘false brethren’ like these.
When the judgement of God comes it will begin with the household of God first and it will either acquit or condemn the members thereof and if you are judged to be innocent, then you do not want to sustain collateral damage from standing too close to those who have been judged guilty when the rod and sword of God’s judgement falls.
yor bro ken
My favorite quotes of the week are:
Jeff White, Co-Founder of Survivors, remarked, “I saw recently President Obama in a 2nd grade class on a little chair talking with the students. I wonder if he told them that just 8 years ago he advocated the right to kill them.”
Jill’s response to Nora, “Amaury, you “beg that we treat others with tenderness”? Really? Like the 1.2 million children killed by abortion every year in the U.S.
Get back to me when you care about them.”
Regarding the Cardinal’s participation in Kennedy’s funeral, I like what Jesus said, “Follow me and let the dead bury their own dead.”
And finally, the love of Thomas’ Mother and Father, “Look at him, he’s so beautiful! I can’t believe how pretty you are…Look how cute he is…The only thing Thomas will ever know in this world is love.”
And, “We didn’t terminate [the pregnancy] because he is our son.”
you do not want to sustain collateral damage from standing too close to those who have been judged guilty when the rod and sword of God’s judgement falls.
yor bro ken
Posted by: kbhvac at September 5, 2009 10:05 AM
oh, so scary.
Hal,
If you knew what awaits an unrepentant sinner after he breathes his last breath on this planet, you’d probably soil your undergarments.
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/852697/23_minutes_in_hell_reference_edition/
http://www.tangle.com/view_video?viewkey=bbf0b6e5bd86b2572c93
Ed, if you knew there was no God, you probably couldn’t get through the day. Be free, it’s nice.
Hal,
I couldn’t ever live freely knowing I endorsed ending the lives of my children-god or no god.
Hal:
Still pitiful.
Hal,
You are greatly deceived my friend.
You think that Christianity is a crutch for ladies and weak men. You’ve believed a lie that God doesn’t exist, and have hardened your heart against the convicting power of His Holy Spirit. You are like the fools who ignore the warning lights, bells and barricades at railroad crossings. Dozens, even hundreds of people die each year, “free” from the encumberances of traffic laws and common sense, attempting to race across the tracks before an oncoming train.
Rejecting the Love, Mercy, Forgiveness and Lordship of Jesus Christ is absolutely the worst decision you could possibly make. If you reject and despise the sacrifice Jesus made for you on the cross, shedding His Own Blood for the remission of your sins, you will regret it for all eternity and suffer torments you can’t imagine now.
Repent and be saved before it is too late!
“If you reject and despise the sacrifice Jesus made for you on the cross, shedding His Own Blood for the remission of your sins, you will regret it for all eternity and suffer torments you can’t imagine now.”
I reject, but don’t despise.
So PP wants to “normalize” abortion with teeshirts that say “I had an abortion”. How degrading and trivializing to women and their unborn children and to women who suffer from the trauma of their abortions. Its no wonder this backfired as I think few women care to degrade themselves in this manner.
Why not teeshirts that say “I had a hemorrhoidectomy” or “I had a bowel resection”?
I don’t think these procedures carry any social stigma and are “normalized” but how would you react to seeing this on someone’s tee-shirt?
Would it make these procedures anymore aesthetically pleasing? Is this something you really want to know? Wouldn’t this be considered incredibly tacky?
What are these people at PP thinking? I already know what they’re thinking with.
“Ed, if you knew there was no God, you probably couldn’t get through the day. Be free, it’s nice.”
Hal, in my personal experience, those who are actively religious typically demonstrate tremendous strength of character – the sort of character that I don’t possess. They have also been some of the most humble, selfless and charitable people I’ve ever known. It doesn’t get any more “free” than dedicating your life to serving a higher purpose.
I have been pondering how the late Sen. Kennedy could write about how much good he had done for the “poor” and the “underpriviliged” and how he could be lauded as a voice for the “powerless”. I cannot explain it all of course and cannot know what exactly motivated him but it occurred to me the backwards logic of the Ted Kennedys, Barack Obama’s and other pro-aborts (some who post on this blog) who actually believe that being “poor” is worse than dying from mutilation, decapitation and being suctioned out of your mother’s womb. A death sentence, the ultimate price, is to be paid by innocent, unborn babies who are going to born poor, unwanted, inconvenient, deformed, etc., their life is to be sacrificed on the altar of abortion. This is actually a religion. This is the ultimate form of idolatry, self-worship, pride and arrogance, by rationalizing that to live in poverty is a “sin”, to be “unwanted” is a “sin”, to make your mother’s life inconvenienced is a “sin” and that a “woman’s right to choose” trumps every unborn’s right to live. This mindset is a “religion” of self-righteous, pious bigotry. Only babies “lucky” enough to be well-off enough, wanted, healthy enough, convienent enough (as Margaret Sanger would say “the fit”) should be allowed to live. And they call us prolifers religious, self-righteous bigots. I am not speaking here of women who feel trapped and pressured to abort believing they have no other choice but of the Dead Babies R Us, abortion on demand crowd, like U.S. Senators Kennedy and former Senator Obama and now President who never saw an abortion law they didn’t like or vote for and who wouldn’t even lift a finger to save a baby who survived a botched abortion. We are dealing with spiritual darkness and sickness here of phenomenal proportions. God help the nation.
No kidding, Mary! They mine as well just put on their t-shirt “I had an abortion. So what!?”
Prolifer,
Just re-read my post.
Sorry if I came off sounding rude in any way. If I was spitting any venom, it was definitely aimed at the clergy who have mislead their flock, and I apologize for any misunderstanding.
As a devout Catholic, I get very frustrated when I run across other “Catholics” who have gotten the impression that they can pick-and-choose their theology from our Catechism and their own lives. I find it infinitely more aggravating when I see priests, bishops, and cardinals who encourage this idea. It is FALSE. There is little more destructive to our faith than CINO clergy.
I try and try to be a light of Christ’s example within my little world. I try to understand why a cardinal, with his extensive background in the faith, would feel that it was acceptable to praise the name of a man like Ted Kennedy. I try to understand why priests and bishops would honor and acclaim our most anti-Catholic (I should say anti-Roman Catholic) president yet… I try to understand why they would do so under the name of “communication”…. but it comes down to pride, arrogance, and FALSEHOODS.
We Catholics find ourselves too easily tripped into believing that we know better than to follow Canon Law to the letter. Worse yet, we believe this without bothering to understand WHY Canon Law is as it is. WHY does the Church teach against abortion, against homosexual acts, against women priests? What do we mean when we say “Communion of Saints”?
So I must apologize for my vitriol. None of it was meant for you, but I’m afraid it came across wrongly. Please forgive me my poor wording.
Here are some new ideas and conversation stoppers (or hopefully conversation starters) for “I had an abortion” t-shirts: “I had an abortion…and I grieve for my child” or “I had an abortion…and they abandoned me” or “I had an abortion…I was coerced” or “I had an abortion…and he left me anyway” All of these speak a common truth among post-abortion women.
MaryRose I did not find your words to be too harsh but an expression of your frustration, so no apology is needed here. You have expressed the frustration that I feel myself with Protestant clergy and churches who are afraid of being “politically incorrect” at the expense of the truth of gospel of Jesus Christ. I hope my rant earlier makes sense about the spiritual idolatry that I believe has gripped some people regarding their “worship” of abortion. God bless you. I know we prolifers sometimes get frustrated and discouraged. You and I as well as many others who post here give our time, energy and money to help in this fight. We walk the walk not just talk the talk as much as we can. As a word of encouragement I just thought about the scripture “Let us not be weary in well doing, for afterwhile we will reap a harvest of blessings”
On the topic of pro-life attire…
I have a pro-life t-shirt that says “Abortion is mean.” I stopped wearing it in public because I got so many nasty and confrontational comments. It would’ve been worth it if those confronting me were interested in opening up a discussion, but instead they would just say something rude and storm off. So much for tolerance and diversity.
Thanks, Prolifer! :) That DID perk me up! XD